Lw Drafts Rules For Paying Of Legal Fees

April 1, 1986|By Stephen J. Cohen, Staff Writer

LAKE WORTH — City officials may find comfort in an ordinance being drafted by City Attorney Alan Fallik making the city responsible for providing attorneys or paying legal fees of city employees sued in the line of duty.

The city has no such law now. Providing legal counsel or paying legal fees is at the discretion of the City Commission, Fallik said.

Commissioner Ed Shepherd and former Commissioner Joe Martin want the city to reimburse their legal expenses which, they claim, were incurred as a result of their jobs as commissioners. Shepherd wants $1,296 and Martin is claiming $4,200.

Shepherd and Martin have acknowledged that the chances of their getting their legal costs reimbursed may have improved. The two candidates that both supported, Roy Strohacker and Larry Langlais, defeated incumbents Andy Andrews and Ron Exline.

Shepherd won a battle against charges he was ineligible to serve on the commission because he was not a city resident when he filed for election.

Martin settled out of court a slander suit claiming that he made statements over the phone to a city resident, maligning some city police officers. He sued the city for reimbursement of his legal fees and lost. He has appealed.

Monday, Shepherd would only say, ``I submitted my claim because I am entitled to my legal fees. I hope the commissioners will see fit to pay me because I had to hire an attorney.``

Fallik said he will base the proposed ordinance on a state law that authorizes, but does not require, a local government to provide an attorney to city employees and officials who are sued in connection with action they took in the city`s name.

Having an ordinance will strengthen the security of city employees, he said, by giving them something to fall back on.

However, state law allows a city to recover the cost of that defense from the employee if it is later determined that the employee or official broke the law or violated someone`s human or property rights.

In either case it would still be the commission`s decision, Fallik said. But the scope of that decision would be narrowed.

Fallik said Monday he will also ask the commission to vote again on whether the city should defend Mayor David Hinsa, Exline and three others against a lawsuit brought by Thomas Mitchell, former comptroller with the Lake Worth Utilities Authority.

The problem, Fallik said Monday, is that Exline was on the prevailing side in that vote. Fallik said he believes the new commission should be offered the choice of voting anew.

Mitchell has charged that the commission wrongfully fired him a day after the city abolished the utilities authority, 44 days after he started the $33,500- a-year job. He demanded a $100,000 severance fee, which the commission denied.

The Florida Supreme Court ruled on May 29, 1984, that the city`s action abolishing the authority was unconstitutional. City voters in March 1985 abolished the authority.